Ethereum Foundation: Holešky testnet will soon be decommissioned

ChainCatcher news, the Ethereum Foundation officially announced that the Holešky testnet has reached its planned end of life and will soon cease operations. Two weeks after the confirmation of the Fusaka upgrade on Holešky, the vast majority of remaining validator nodes will be shut down. After that, the client team, testing team, and infrastructure team will no longer provide support for Holešky.

The official statement noted that Holešky was launched in 2023 as the largest public testnet for Ethereum, specifically designed for testing large-scale staking infrastructure and validator operations. The network has accomplished its mission, assisting thousands of validators in completing protocol upgrade tests, including the Dencun network upgrade and the recent Pectra upgrade.

However, after the activation of the Pectra testnet in early 2025, Holešky experienced a large-scale inactive leak phenomenon, leading to a surge in validator exit queues. Although the network eventually recovered and completed confirmations, the lengthy validator exit process made it impractical to complete a full validator lifecycle test within a reasonable timeframe. This directly prompted the creation and launch of the brand new testnet Hoodi in March 2025, which provides a new testing environment free from these limitations.